


why i hold with all i have

by ladyfriday



Category: Korean Drama, 응답하라 1988 | Answer Me 1988
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 20:40:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6255070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/pseuds/ladyfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When their eyes meet, they begin to laugh. This is how Dong Ryong finds them: clutching their stomachs, the sound of their laughter twisting into one, the chicken growing cold.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Five times Taek surprises Deok Sun, and one time she surprises him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	why i hold with all i have

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the anonymous prompt: "Five times: Taek and Deoksun surprise one another." + the very highly requested "missing years". I've taken a few liberties with that first one. Sorry anon, I hope you don't mind!
> 
> Title from After the Storm by Mumford and Sons.

**_sur·prise_** /sə(r)ˈprīz/ _noun_

A feeling of mild astonishment or shock caused by something unexpected.

 

**i.**   **I look up, on my knees and out of luck, I look up.**

It's the domino effect.

There's this pit in Deok Sun's stomach when she hands in her history exam, hands dotted with black pen ink, fingers cramping from scribbling anything and everything that might be relevant to the question. It's the nervous kind of nausea she imagines people get on the rollercoasters at Seoul Land when they pause at the peak, right before hurtling down the slope at a hundred kilometres per hour. She's begging for marks, basically. Writing anything and everything she knows in the hopes that one of her answers will be what they're looking for. And if that fails, perhaps the teacher grading her paper will give her a few pity marks.

_You tried._

It rankles; even after an entire year of devoting herself to her books, of ignoring her friends and spending almost all of her time at hagwons and in study rooms, she's still not good enough. She still isn't as good as Sung Bo Ra who never had to rely on an examiner's pity. That even now, it's still _Sung Bo Ra_ that’s the highest achieving kid on their block.  

The feeling stays with her into the math exam, twisting her stomach into knots. Halfway through, she realizes her answer to number seven on the history paper had been _completely wrong, you absolute idiot_ , and she needs a minute. Her head bangs against the wooden desk, the spot in the middle of her forehead throbbing painfully, eraser dust sticking to the skin. This is exactly the wrong time for her to be making stupid mistakes like this, and she can't _believe_ she didn't catch it, when she’d had a whole five minutes left to check her work.

By the time Deok Sun gets her thoughts back in order, twenty minutes have passed. She turns the page to the last, longest question, and she has only read half of it when time runs out and they're told to put their pencils down.

The girls around her have easy, satisfied faces, and that's when Deok Sun knows. It isn't going to happen this year. She'll have to wait yet another year, delay finding a real, adult job _another year_. Once again, she has failed.

The paper has to be pried from her cold, stiff fingers.

Her science exam goes equally badly, and god, _her English exam_. It's the kind of situation where she has to start thinking about finding a way to give herself selective amnesia, erasing memories the way drama characters so conveniently do. At the very least it'll distract her parents, save her from having to hurt them with yet another failure.

The other students rush out of the rooms the instant the last paper is collected, chattering animatedly about the answers.

"Did you get _x_ is equal to twenty point three for question four on math?"

She didn't.

"Yeah, I think so!" says the friend. _Amnesia looks better every second._

Deok Sun is among the last to leave, taking her time with her pens and pencils, tucking them carefully into her pencil case, counting them to make sure she hasn’t left any of them behind. By the time she finishes, the halls are empty save for a few stragglers, who ignore her as she walks the halls of Ssangmun-dong Girls' High School for what very likely won't be the last time.

She's halfway across the field when she hears pounding footsteps, and she's about the move to the side, when someone stops her with a very large, _very_ familiar pair of hands on her shoulders.

"Taek? When did you get back?" she mumbles, not sure if she’s seeing things.

She’d talked to him just last night—he’d told her she’d do well, and she’d agreed because well. What else was she supposed to do? She couldn’t very well tell him that she was scared out of her mind, that she wished he was home instead of in Tokyo, when he’d just finished his tournament. That if he’d been here, she’d have been able to _really_ cram in the final hours leading up to the exam, his presence calming her nerves in the way nothing else can.

But here he is, when he’d been scheduled to fly back tomorrow morning. A few hours too late, but here, nonetheless.

“This morning at dawn,” he gasps, hands on his knees as he catches his breath. “What took you so long? Everyone came out, but you didn’t. I was worried you’d left.”

“You should’ve come inside,” she says, stunned, “What were you doing, waiting out here in the cold?”

The flush in Taek’s cheeks intensifies. “It’s a girls’ high school, I wasn’t sure I was allowed in there.”

“You were supposed to fly back tomorrow morning, how…?”

He shrugs, “I only had to talk to reporters today, so it’s okay. I talk to them all the time, anyway.”

Deok Sun frowns at him suspiciously, “Are you sure you can skip that?”

“It’ll be fine,” he waves her off, “Do you want to have fried chicken? I won the tournament, so…”

 _That’s right._ He’d won Fujitsu again this year.

“Well done!” she says, a smile breaking through her melancholy.

She’s about to pat his back, but when her hand is mere centimetres away from touching him, memories of his lips on hers, of how warm his hand had been, wrapped around her palm floods her mind, and she just. _She can’t._ Her heart stutters, she swallows hard. With time, she’ll forget what her first kiss felt like. But right now, that day is still too fresh in her mind for her to touch him as she used to without feeling like she might explode.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, her voice low.

“I’m proud of you, too,” he beams at her, “Deok Sun-ah, you’ve worked hard.”

She shrugs off her bad day, not willing to let her failure taint his success. They grab chicken on their way back and end up in his room, sitting cross legged and facing one another, the food between them. They wait about five minutes for Dong Ryong to show up, but his house is conspicuously quiet. It’s terrible of her, but. Deok Sun is a little bit glad. If he doesn’t show up, then she won’t have to listen to him tell her how much of an idiot she is, bombing an exam after studying that hard for an entire year.

Most days, Dong Ryong’s presence is more than welcome. But sometimes, she needs this; just her and Taek and the perfect amount of quiet.

Deok Sun’s stomach growls as she grabs a drumstick and rips into it. She’s halfway done with it, when mirth bubbles in her gut, nearly choking her as she tries to swallow both the chicken and her laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Taek asks, grease smeared across his mouth.

“Nothing, just,” she swallows, her shoulders drooping. “I really must be thick skinned, if I still have this much of an appetite, after the exam I just wrote.”

“Why?” he asks slowly, “Did it not go well?”

She laughs, the likes of which she has never heard from herself. Bitter, self-deprecating, the kind born of years spent being last, of being the token idiot. Of failing no matter how hard she tries.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay,” he nods, pushing the box of chicken towards her.

“I expected it,” she says, swallowing around the lump in her throat, her vision blurring.

“I know.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then:

"You should've called me Soo Yeon," Deok Sun bursts out, squeezing her eyes shut. A disobedient tear slips down her cheek; she wipes at it furiously, dragging her arm across her face. “Now I’m not going to get into college again this year!”

“Did it go that badly?”

“Badly? That’s an understatement. The graders are going to look at my papers and laugh!”

He frowns. “And you know this, how? You didn’t see the exam’s answer key.”

“I don’t need to!” she sniffles, “The girls around me got different answers.”

“Maybe they’re the ones who got it wrong,” Taek sighs, “You can’t know how you did until the results come out.”

“Hah,” she scoffs, “As if. Do you really think that I’m smart enough that I’m the one that gets the right answer, and not them?”

“Yeah, I do,” he says softly, “Deok Sun-ah, sometimes you need to have a little faith. You did better than you think you did. I know it.”

She has heaps of faith. She believes her parents will always want what’s best for her. That they’ll love her no matter the outcome of her exams. She believes Sung Bo Ra’s level will always be unattainable. That she isn’t meant to ever be the smart one.

She has faith that Choi Taek will always be with her. That he’ll always be hers—in a platonic, friendly way. Of course.

“You’re one to talk about faith,” she mutters, clearing her throat, “Mr. Can’t Sleep If I lose Even One Game.”

When their eyes meet, they begin to laugh. This is how Dong Ryong finds them: clutching their stomachs, the sound of their laughter twisting into one, the chicken growing cold.

(Taek doesn’t say _I told you_ so when she gets accepted to Sejong University’s hospitality and tourism management program.)

 

 

**ii. night has always pushed up day.**

When Choi Taek 6-dan becomes Choi Taek 7-dan, he spends a good a week doing press.

It’s during exam season, and Deok Sun takes to sleeping at a friend’s house, the hour-long commute to campus a waste of time she can’t afford. They don’t see each other as often as they once did, but they talk. He calls her when he gets home, and even if one of them ends up nodding off halfway through their conversation, it’s _something_. A confirmation of sorts: whatever she may be doing with her life, he’s still a part of it.

She comes home on Friday, and waits for him on the bench outside her house, the weather warm enough that she can study outside, in the glow of the streetlights. By the time he wanders down the alleyway, it’s late. His feet drag along the crumbling concrete road, his bag slips off of his shoulder. His head droops, his chin nearly hitting his chest as he shuffles towards her.

“Hey,” she says, springing to her feet and going to him, “What’s wrong?”

“Deok Sun?” he looks up at her, smiling tiredly, “When did you come home?”

“This evening,” she takes his hand and pulls him into the light so she can catch a better look at his face. He’s pale, his eyes are puffy and half closed, he struggles to stand straight. “Why do you look so tired?”

“It’s nothing,” he sighs, sinking onto the bench. She sits down beside him, and a hush falls over the alleyway, the silence punctuated by the insects’ buzzing.

“Deok Sun-ah,” Taek says after a while.

“Hmm?”

“Is it okay if I stop doing the interviews?”

She frowns at him. “Of course it is. It’s your choice.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience the reporters,” he sighs, looking up at the moths flying around the streetlight.

“They can handle it,” Deok Sun nudges his shoulder with hers, “I mean, they’re adults. They can’t expect you to please them all. It’s like one of those extra special sales at the supermarket. Only the Ahjummas who line up first get the deals. And you’re like a premium Hanwoo gift set on sale before Chuseok for manwon each!”

He chuckles softly before sobering once more. “I just…I don’t want to seem like I’m making a big deal.”

“You’re not,” Deok Sun pats his knee, “Enough is enough. If you spend this much time doing interviews, when are you going to practice and become Choi Taek 8-dan?”

They practice saying _no_ until Taek has it down.

The articles begin to roll out, one after the other. Appa buys every single magazine he can find, and Deok Sun steals the stacks, reading them in bed before she falls asleep. The interviews aren’t limited to paper and ink; the family gathers in front of the television on the evenings Taek’s TV appearances air, squabbling for the spots that offer the best view.

This is the version of Taek the nation sees: calm and composed, his dress shirt starched and ironed, his hair combed back and gleaming under the studio lights. This is what she remembers: Taek cautiously poking at his hair as he walks home, grimacing at the gel’s residue that comes away on his fingers.

Looking at him now, sitting on a couch, one long leg crossed over the other, Deok Sun can see it. She can see why her best friend is a celebrity in his own right. From the black jacket that hugs his shoulders ( _were they always so broad?_ ) to the crisply white shirt underneath, and the striped tie around his neck, he looks. Well, like a _man_ , and Deok Sun finds her cheeks growing inexplicably warm.

“Your success has become legendary,” says Yoon Ah, the Sunday Night interviewer, “Who are the people you’re most thankful to?”

“My father,” Taek says, without missing a beat, folding his hands over his knee. “Without his support, I wouldn’t have been able to make it this far. He raised me by himself, but I never really felt like I was missing something.”

“That’s right,” says Appa, “Kildongie Ahjusshi really is something else.”

_“But being an only child…do you ever get lonely?”_

“Sometimes,” Taek smiles, staring at his lap, “But never when I’m at home.”

“Oh,” Yoon Ah looks taken aback, “And why is that?”

“It may have just been my father and me, but it never really felt like it, since our doors were always open and our neighbours were always coming and going. I didn’t have siblings, but I had the other kids who lived on my block.”

“Noona,” No Eul says excitedly, elbowing her in the ribs. Deok Sun shoves him away, shushing him loudly.

“Are you still close with them, then? These friends?”

“Yes, I am—well, as much as it’s possible, with everyone in university now,” his face softens and his eyes drift off to the side, heavy-lidded and dreamy. “There’s a friend of mine, though—one of the kids I grew up with. She’s…even if we don’t see each other as often, we’re still very close.”

 _He’s talking about her._ Of course he is, she’s the only female friend he has, childhood or otherwise. For a minute, Deok Sun just stops. She hears her parents and No Eul chattering animatedly about Taek’s talking about her, and _what an honor_. But her eyes stay glued to the screen, her chest feeling suddenly tight. Butterflies flutter up a storm in her stomach, Deok Sun’s teeth bite into her lips.

He hadn’t said anything about mentioning her in an interview broadcasted across the nation.

“No matter what, she has always been on my side,” he continues, and when he looks up at the camera, she feels like he’s staring right at her. “I wouldn’t have been able to come this far if it hadn’t been for Deok Sun being there for me. Especially when I had slumps. So if you ask about the people I’m most thankful to, I have to mention her.”

“She sounds like an amazing person,” Yoon Ah says, nodding, “She must be very important to you.”

A slow smile brightens his face, starting in his eyes, brushing his cheeks and tugging at the corners of his mouth until he’s beaming into the camera. “She is.”

(Deok Sun doesn’t quite know what to make of it.)

 

 

**iii. you must know life to see decay.**

They’re standing in line outside theatre nine, arms laden with popcorn and candy and every snack they had at the concessions counter, basically, when an unfamiliar and distinctly female voice calls to him.

“Taek-ssi? What’re you doing here?”

 _She’s pretty._ In that classic long hair, small face, big eyes way. The kind of pretty that screams at you until you have no choice but to stare. And stare Deok Sun does. She doesn’t presume to know everyone in Taek’s life. There’re loads of people he knows from the baduk world that she will very likely never encounter. But baduk pros have a distinct air about them, and this woman is decidedly not someone who plays.

“Ri Jin-ssi, hello,” Taek bows his head, and Deok Sun’s brows shoot up at the familiarity with which he addresses her. _He has seen this girl more than twice._ “I’m watching a movie with my friend.”

There’s a beat, and Deok Sun can feel the woman—Ri Jin—sizing her up, taking her measure.

“Hello,” Deok Sun bows, holding out a hand, “I’m Sung Deok Sun. It’s nice to meet you.”

Ri Jin grabs it and gives it a firm shake, the skin of her hands soft and supple, next to Deok Sun’s housework toughened hands. “I’m Jang Ri Jin. It’s nice to meet you, too.”

It’s bright and sincere, and Deok Sun feels her stomach churn. This girl seems nice. Exactly the kind of girl she’d want Taek to date, not someone who would take advantage of him. And she wants to be happy for him, she does. It’s just. This whole situation doesn’t sit right.

Ri Jin tucks her hands into her coat pockets. “Have you been well?” she asks Taek, beaming up at him.

“Yes,” Taek nods, “And you?”

She shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

“Deok Sun finished her exams, and we’d promised to come see Dracula together, so here we are.”

“I see,” her eyes go wider, and she shrugs, “I can’t watch things like that. Too bloody.”

Deok Sun’s about to cut in and brag about _just_ how good she is at watching scary films, when the line starts moving.

“Looks like we’re supposed to go in now,” Taek says, “It was nice seeing you, Ri Jin-ssi.”

“I’ll wait for your call,” she says to Taek, offering him one last smile. “It was nice to meet you Deok Sun-ssi. I hope to see you again.”

“Me too,” Deok Sun replies, and she tries to be sincere about it, _she does_.  

She’s tempted a dozen times to look over her shoulder as the two of them walk away. To make sure that it really is going to be just her and Taek. When they’re safely inside the theatre, she nearly sighs in relief.

“So,” Deok Sun says as they get settled into their seats, “Ri Jin-ssi was interesting. Where’d you meet her?”

“On a date,” he jams their drinks into the cup holder between them.

_Oh._

“Since when do you date?” she clears her throat, “Do you even have time?”

“Since a while ago, I guess,” he shrugs, “Ri Jin-ssi is a colleague’s cousin. It was a blind date.”

He’s reaching into the popcorn bucket, when Deok Sun stops him with a hand on his wrist. “Wait, stop. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Taek frowns. “I must’ve forgotten, then. And it isn’t like you tell me about everyone you go on dates with.”

“I tell you about my boyfriends!” she protests, “You’ve even seen some of them!”

“Ri Jin-ssi isn’t my girlfriend,” he sighs, yanking his arm free and leaning back in his seat, “I’ve just seen her around, and gone on a few dates with her. That’s all.”

The thing is, it really isn’t any of her business. She goes on dates, there’s no rule that says he can’t do the same. Still, her stomach churns at the thought of him holding hands with some other girl, taking her to movies and restaurants. Someone taking him away from her, filling her space in his life. It wouldn’t be that hard. Between her classes and club activities, and Taek’s matches, they barely get to see each other. He isn’t slipping away from her yet, but. He’ll have to find someone, date someone, _get married_ someday.

And then he’ll stop being _hers_ , won’t he?

“It sure seemed like it,” Deok Sun mutters under her breath.

“Well, she isn’t. I would tell you if she was.”

“You’d better,” she says, forcing levity into her tone, “I’m supposed to know everything about you, remember?”

“Right,” he says, slurping their soda through his straw.

(Deok Sun stays silent through the previews, and he doesn’t pull her into conversation.)

 

 

**iv. but I won’t rot, not this mind, not this heart, I won’t rot.**

She’d like to say she isn’t nervous.

Deok Sun stands by the airplane doors, hands folded over her stomach, bowing to every passenger that steps on board. If Soo Jin Sunbae-nim is busy directing someone to their seat, she has to take the next passenger’s boarding card, and point them in the right direction. It isn’t rocket science, but her heart’s stuttering, and her stomach’s churning. She’s frozen where she stands, afraid that she’ll totter right off her brand new black pumps.

(It’s normal if she’s nervous, the sunbaes had told her before they’d started boarding. _It’s her first flight, after all._ Deok Sun is fairly certain, they don’t know just how nervous she really is.)

They’ve gone through most of the queue winding down the bridge, when a very familiar pair of hands shows her his boarding pass.

He’s grinning at her when she looks up, one of his full-faced smiles, his teeth a flash of white against his lips. “Hi.”

“What’re you…” she starts, before she remembers that she isn’t Taek’s friend right now. She’s a flight attendant, and she has a job to do. “Welcome on board, customer-nim,” she finishes, standing straight.

“I have a practice match in Beijing,” he supplies.

“Ah, I see,” she says, biting back the _why didn’t you tell me?_ “Your seat is just down the aisle here, and to your left.”

“Thank you,” he tells her as he walks down the aisle, adjusting the shoulder strap on his bag. Just before he’s about to slide into his seat, his eyes meet hers. Taek holds up a fist and mouths, “Sung Deok Sun, fighting!”

She beams at every passenger that follows.

(“I wanted to surprise you,” he tells her later. “So. _Surprise._ ”)

 

 

**v. and I took you by the hand, and we stood tall.**

Deok Sun finds it quite by accident.

Taek is in the middle of a game that he might lose, and she can barely breathe for the stress, so she ends up in his hotel room. She rolls around the bed for a while, before tiring and switching on the television. But her mind’s too fractured to decipher the Japanese, and it isn’t long before she turns it off. It’s more restless tossing and turning in the bed, before she decides enough is enough. She begins to look for a book or a puzzle, anything to occupy her hands until the match is over. 

Deok Sun’s shuffling through the contents of his bedside table, when the frayed edge of a photograph poking out of his pocketbook catches her eye. She tugs it out carefully, her grip on the corner tightening when she realizes what it is. Sinking onto the bed, she gently rubs the pad of her thumb over her younger self, then him. Their faces still bear a youthful roundness, Taek beams into the camera, an arm around her, while she smiles shyly, her lips pressed tightly together.

She can’t believe he still has it.

“01/89” has been written carefully onto the bottom right-hand corner of the photo. It’s been a little over six years exactly, since that first trip. Six years since that photo was taken, yet here it is. Still tucked into his pocketbook that he changes every year. But the photo had to stay.

Her chest feels tight, she bites the inside of her cheek. All those years they’d spent apart, seeing other people, and he’d had this all along.

Deok Sun sits quietly for a while, holding the picture as carefully as she possibly can.

(She tucks the photo into her wallet, intent on making a copy, but the next morning, she comes into his room to find him searching frantically for something.

“There was a photo,” he says, sticking his head under the bed, “Not very big, tucked into my pocketbook. It has to be in here.”

“I have it,” she tells him, pulling him up. “Don’t worry.”

“Oh thank god.” He slumps in relief.)

 

 

**vi. and remembered our land, what we lived for.**

When he gets home, she nearly gives him a black eye in her rush to find his pocketbook. If he’s startled, he doesn’t show it, just calmly reaches into his bag and hands it to her before taking his time and slipping off his jacket. She yanks the pen out of the spine, and fumbles with the leather-covered planner, nearly ripping the pages out in her haste.

“Did something happen?” he asks, draping his jacket carefully over a hanger and putting it in the coat closet.

“Yeah,” she says, clumsy fingers folding a few pages in her haste to get to the right week. “Turn around.”

When he does, Deok Sun presses the planner against his back, and writes in careful letters. She presses a little too hard in some places, leaving dents on the pages that come after. It’s fitting; this entry is going to change everything that gets written into this planner from this day forward.

When she’s done, she hands it to him, biting her lower lip, twisting her hands together. “Here, read it.”

“The fetus’s,” he stops, his voice becoming hoarse, “The fetus’s seven week birthday.”

“Congratulations,” she says, smiling shakily, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around his waist, looking up at him with watery eyes, “You’re going to be an Appa.”

“Yeah?” he tucks her hair behind her ear before cupping her face in his hands, “Really?”

“Yeah,” she bites the inside of her cheek, “We’re _finally_ going to be parents.”

They stand in the foyer for the next little while, Deok Sun pressing her face into his chest, Taek hugging her so tightly, she aches. And when he finally leans down to kiss her, they’re both laughing.

 

 

-

_And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears._

_And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears._

_Get over your hill and see what you find there,_

_With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the mega long wait between fics. I'm trying to be on top of things, it's just real life gets in the way of fangirl life nine times out of ten. I'm working on fics and have a few on the verge of completion, so fingers crossed my next one-shot doesn't take 2 months. 
> 
> Big thank you to kepogee and pbjayism for being the rays of sunshine that you are. You two make me a better writer. <33
> 
> Still working through prompts, but if you have any requests, find me on [tumblr](http://evil-writer.tumblr.com/ask/)! You can also come cry with me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/ladyfriday87) if that's more your thing~


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